Re: Don’t Bother With Proprietary .RAR Compression

On Wed, 22 May 2024 01:22:58 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro
<ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

Every now and then, I come across download archives in this .RAR format.
The formats have different versions: v4 and lower can be extracted with
Free Software tools like unar <https://theunarchiver.com/command-line>,
while v5 needs a non-Free tool.
>
A few times now, when I come across a v5 RAR archive, I try recompressing
it with 7-zip <https://7-zip.org/>, and so far, the .7z version of archive
has always been smaller. And 7-zip is Free Software!
>
So there is no point to using the proprietary format: avoid it.

I have to admit that I'm not a fan of the .RAR format, but only
because I never have a tool on hand to decompress the pirated content
I found compressed in the .RAR format. Every time I want to find ROMs
for a variety of old video game consoles, whoever compiled the
collection always insists on .RAR rather than the more convenient
.ZIP.

I will agree with you though. The fact that more recent .RAR files
can't be uncompressed without a proprietary tool is alarming. I
imagine that something similar will happen to office formats in the
future: files created today won't be readable by the new software or
vice versa. This is partly why I always wanted my documents to be
saved in the OpenDocument standard. It's too bd that my workplace, a
public school which would benefit from using open formats that are
free of charge to use, insists on the Office Open XML stuff.